The Moon Gets Its Light from the Sun
by leonebrion
Summary: A young princess discreetly created by her mad scientist brother, ruling as the Silver Cross King, finds a sad jester of the Noah kingdom at night. With him on the infamous and eerily dark cliff in limbo, the moon as it's haunting background, the young princess becomes infatuated. Allen x Lenalee with dark themes. TimBurton!AU. Cover by: sofi367345 on deviantart


**Prologue: Dearest Mana -**

Traditionally soulless irises now filled with glimmers produced by the setting sun were a sight to be held at the Campbell household, as it was as rare a sight of a curious salamander-ostrich yanking its head finally from the ground the irises' owner's feet didn't quite touch. Silver grey eyes were stuck upon the livid sky only ever interchangeable with rouge and the owner of the pair closed his eyes almost shut, numbing his mind and strainlessly thought. But not of those,

_What?_

_Why?_

_Where?_

_Whom?_

_How?_,

questions...

After all the time he spent exhausting himself mentally fighting his own self, he felt dread to know that those feelings and thoughts of doubt were still prevalent in his mind and to no avail with any amount of countered hope could they ever go away. He felt like a failure of a brother. All because he kept asking:

_What is happening?_

_Why didn't he come to him sooner?_

_Where is he right now?_

_Whom is he with?_

_How did he become this way?_

He pondered why he never told himself that his brother was fine, dismissing any other thoughts. He felt weak for allowing himself to worry, for not allowing his brother of faith. He wanted to vanish from existence every day with each burning question that raced through his mind, the same way his brother did in a cruel image his mind conjured whenever he couldn't find it in himself to silence his foolish, sadistic mind. Yet as his helplessness was stubbornly rare but traumatic nonetheless with the aforementioned image, he found himself doing exactly the opposite every day from the moment he grew sick of those same questions. Fighting heavily to overcome his mental treason.

Until now. He finally found it in him to extinguish his purgatory. He was at peace. If only for a minute as the next fleeting thought...

_Sick... just like Mana.._.

Brought him back to that familiar state.

"Dammit," he grunted, resentful of the fact that he allowed himself to think.

To feel.

He grabbed onto Cornelia's branch that he perched himself on, hunching over but still somewhat afraid to lose balance from his own weight.

He couldn't allow himself to cry too.

A welcomed breeze washed over his face, him straightening his narrow, youthful back as he stared forward towards the horizon. "What is the wind saying?" It spoke a thousand words at once.

As if an almighty power had carried her petite form over to him with the wind, he found himself surprised to find his mother beneath the branch then gazing and smiling up at him, almost mischievously.

She touched her narrow, tiny fingered hand to the tree, "it looked like you were talking to it."

"What are you talking about?" He inquired.

His mother ignored his query. "Hello Cornelia," she greeted the tree.

The boy, with no evident expression, only looked down at his mother as if trying to analyze her.

"Where's Cyrus, wasn't he with you?" She asked.

"Uncle is where that strangely coloured smoke is coming from?" He stated but questioned too as he looked at the sky above Uncle Cyrus' location. "Hey, Mother. Is it true that weirdo is the new head of the Campbell family?"

His mother was quick to defend her brother. "Weirdness runs in the family. Look at you! You were talking to the tree if not the wind!"

He gave her a look of dismay.

"What a nice breeze..." she trailed off. His mother smiled again, him having a closer look at her face and seeing the dark circles lying under her large, beautiful hazel eyes.

She didn't get much sleep either...

...

...he wanted to fall from Cornelia.

Into her and her arms at least. With that although tired smile, her presence radiated the rare and soft breeze of the summer air and the feeling of dipping your hand into a beehive for honey with a triumphant grin after the smartest man in the world told you to do so. He felt humbled in her warmth and conviction. Secure.

He wouldn't allow himself to cry still, however...

Looking away, he called for her, "Mother."

"Yeeeessss?" Her voice melodic when responding.

"Will Mana ever become an adult?"

Katerina Campbell's smiling expression took off elsewhere, replaced by surprise as she turned the head on her thin neck and narrow shoulders to face him, the head almost bigger than her full frame, a Campbell family distinct trait.

"Bennet and the others said so." Another reason he almost indefinitely forced himself vacuous. "They said Mana won't wake up... After all, today a month has passed since then..."

"Mana is..." Katerina lifted up her dress, leaving her son confused. "Nea." She called and there he was, Mana, smiling and able to pull himself from underneath her dress.

"Ba." Nea's mother and newly found spry brother chirped.

Nea's eyes widened impossibly, a immediate grin of mirth settling on his face, closing his eyes. That expression was accompanied with tears as realization struck him.

"Did you wake up, Mana?" He breathed, gasping for air. "You're so mean, the both of you. Even you mother..."

* * *

Years later...

* * *

The reverberation of paper meeting a carefully threaded cotton glove solely and eerily sounded in the room as one finger traced words of an almost freshly written letter addressed to the gloves' owner, him taking the chance of ruining said glove. The letter then finding itself in the mess that was now the thoroughly destroyed table it laid previously on as the gloves' owner's tears spilled down his cheeks and onto the letter, as if the debris and the dampening liquid would cast away the words' meaning eloquently - and horribly - articulated. The words of the letter now being painfully and thoroughly etched into memory.

_Dear Mana,_

_I never thought another one of my loves would be sick to near death after you. I thought God had his turn with us and then fortunately had moved elsewhere forever, but bitterly, I was wrong about that. He came back something fiercer with an incurable illness that left even the best of our physicians ignorant and confused on how to treat it. I was dispirited when the news first broke and I'm most dispirited now as I write this. I never showed it however, I never allowed myself to show it with you to somehow make it easier. You were already crying after all, hard. Like a big blubbering baby I've always known you to be at times. I wanted to be strong for you like you were strong for me when my pet sea dog had died. Not that it's the same as me losing that barely deemed pet. I just wanted to feel successful in making you feel better in the end. Maybe too successful, because here we are, not speaking to each other and merely exchanging words in a piece of paper for the first time since forever._

_And probably never again._

_I'm leaving you and our family, Mana. I can't deal with it. I refuse to deal with it. All you have is revenge and hatred set dead in cold stone of your mind and heart. You're not thinking clearly even with me scrutinizing with you about everything. Mother died from a broken heart, Mana, and there is nothing else you can do. She was a beautiful __woman__ whom surely had no enemies and is in __the__ hands of __our__ lord as of now. I'm incredibly remorseful for saying such a cruel thing as if this whole ordeal truly was your fault. As you are, I was full of anger and despair when I witnessed the passing. Nothing will excuse that however. I'm sorry, my dear beloved brother. I'm leaving you for another life. I can't stay in a home full of new rigorous and relentless gloom that is synonymous with the obnoxious passing of my greatest love. The woman who gave me life and the ability to be loved and to give that very love back._

_I'm running away with my new great love. I know you know who she is. You always somehow know things..._

_I'm going to be fine, no needeth worry brother. I'll be fine. Tell our family I'll be fine. Tell little Road her uncle loves her._

_Everything will be fine._

_I promise._

_Yours truly,_  
_Nea_

* * *

End of prologue...

* * *

**A/N:** This is going to be a short story.


End file.
